Insights in Environmental Data Management planning: Lessons Learned and Best Practices

ABSTRACT: It is no secret that a good environmental data management system (EDMS) can lower costs, increase efficiency, build confidence in data, and lead to new insights through leveraging an organization’s data assets. Properly implemented EDMSs allow organizations to make the best decisions for everything, from site characterization to site remediation to informed regulatory reporting. Planning a successful EDMS blueprint starts with aligning data collection and management plans with the questions the organization needs to answer and the issues the organization needs to resolve. A EDMS needs to be adaptable to a seemingly ever-increasing list of requirements and complexities, making data more accessible, more instantaneous, and more transformable into actionable information. Developing and implementing a successful EDMS can be a huge challenge. It requires a team that is committed to making the transition, and a unicorn; This person has the experience to bridge the gap between data technology, real-world field data collection, data analysis, data reporting and visualization. In this presentation we will review lessons learned and best practices related to gathering requirements, technology selection, stakeholder engagement and standardization. RÉSUMÉ